Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Whether or not Congress approves the extension of the Bush tax cuts across the board, this is yet another hidden tax that will rear its ugly head on your electric bill. The pressure to produce enough wind and solar energy is not realistic for many reasons. Just think of areas in the Midwest and eastern part of the United States where the sun may not appear for days at a time. Or there isn’t enough wind at a high enough speed to produce any kind of energy. Renewables are nice to think about, but will hardly replace the need for fossil fuels in our lifetime. In the article below, the RES is proof of that.

By S. Fred Singer

The US Senate’s proposed Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) would force electric utilities to generate a large and increasing percentage of their power from wind and solar – rising to 15% by 2021. These goals resemble those of the Waxman-Markey bill that barely passed the House in June 2009. It’s disturbing that some Republicans on the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted for ACELA (American Clean Energy Leadership Act). If the Senate were to take up an energy bill, it is likely that Sen. Brownback (R-KS) will introduce an amendment for RES.

Now, it is quite clear that wind and solar are not economic -- and probably never will be competitive, even when fuel prices rise significantly. So the RES mandate would mean that all of us taxpayers would support even more the RE rent-seekers and lobbyists, who are already milking the government for subsidies and tax-breaks for the construction of wind farms and solar energy projects.

In addition, electricity users (rate payers) would pay more for electric power to cover the higher cost. The so-called “feed in tariff” would force utilities to buy expensive wind and solar electricity and average the cost into the rest of the power produced. The consumer, meaning all of us, would pay for this extravaganza. It’s just a huge transfer of money, yet another regressive tax on consumers, with the electric utilities forced to become tax collectors.

The hoax part of the RES is that “clean electricity” is being advertised as a way to save the earth from the ‘dreadful fate’ of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). To accept this outlandish proposition, one would have to believe that the carbon dioxide generated in the burning of fossil fuels has a noticeable influence on climate. The data argue against it. The constantly advertised “scientific consensus” is phony; it does not exist. The evidence that the UN climate panel, the IPCC, puts forward in support of AGW is pitifully inadequate—and wrong. It is easy to show that no credible evidence exists; just look at the summary of the NIPCC report “Nature, not human activity, rules the climate;” it is available for free on the Internet.

The fraud relates to the idea that energy produced without CO2 emission is “clean.” This word ‘clean’ is being misused, and that’s a huge part of the problem. Of course, removing the genuine pollutants like sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides and mercury from smokestacks is a real clean up. It is already mandated by the Clean Air Act and being pursued adequately. But CO2 is not a pollutant – in spite of the claims of the EPA in its ‘Endangerment Finding – which has yet to be tested in court. CO2 is neither toxic nor irritating nor visible—nor a climate forcer of any significance, so the idea that we have to stop emitting CO2, or capture and sequester it, is a pure fraud.

And finally, the whole scheme is a financial rip-off. We all know that wind and solar energy are intermittent. If their use should rise beyond the present few percent, we would require either on-site storage of electricity or we would have to have standby capacity, probably fueled by expensive natural gas, to kick in when the wind kicks out. Either scheme would impose huge additional costs.

The biggest part of the swindle is that the RES is being sold on the basis of creating “green jobs.” But since when does wasting money create productive jobs? Why not leave it with consumers who can save and invest it to create real jobs. A study conducted in Spain, which has gone overboard on renewable energy, shows that each so-called green job displaces between two and three real jobs. In any case, the manufacture of wind turbines and photovoltaic cells is now in the hands of lower-cost Chinese industry. So the green jobs would consist of sweeping the mirrors clean from dust and dirt and fixing the blades and gearboxes of the turbines when they fail.

In all of this, the proposed legislation ignores nuclear power, which is not only “clean” in the sense of not emitting carbon dioxide, but is also competitive in price with most fossil fuels. Nuclear is most likely to become the major source of electric power once low-cost fossil fuels are depleted. Yet ACELA explicitly says that new nuclear power, updates to existing nuclear facilities and generation from municipal solid waste incineration are not included in the base quantity

The hypocrisy of the RES advocates is appalling. It’s OK for the taxpayer to subsidize low-carbon energy that doesn’t work (wind, solar) but not low-carbon energy that does work (nuclear).

S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, is the founder of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) www.NIPCCreport.org

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Dennis T. Averyhas been quoted in publications ranging from Time and The Washington Post to The Farm Journal. His article, “What's Wrong with Global Warming?” was published in the August 1999 issue of Reader's Digest. With S. Fred Singer, Avery is the coauthor of Unstoppable Global Warming; Every 1500 Years. He travels the world as a speaker, has testified before Congress, and has appeared on most of the nation's major television networks, including a program discussing the bacterial dangers of organic foods on ABC's 20/20. Avery studied agricultural economics at Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin. He holds awards for outstanding performance from three different government agencies and was awarded the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement in 1983. In addition to lending his expertise to CARE as a member of the Energy Counsel, Dennis Avery currently serves as Director, Center for Global Food Issues and is a Senior Fellow for the Hudson Institute is a non-partisan policy research organization dedicated to innovative research and analysis that promotes global security, prosperity, and freedom.

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Robert L. Bradley, Jr. is one of the nation’s leading experts on the history and regulation of energy and related sustainable development issues. He has presented professional testimony on energy issues to the California Energy Commission and United States Senate; his opinion-page editorials on energy policy have appeared in the New York Times and many other newspapers across the country; his energy views have been aired on National Public Radio, Voice of America, CBS Radio Network, and Armed Forces Radio, as well as local programs. Bradley is a multi-published author whose most widely read book is Energy: the Master Resource (with Richard Fulmer). His newest is Capitalism at Work: Business, Government and Energy. He holds a B.A. in economics, a masters in economics from the University of Houston, and a Ph.D. in political economy from International College. Bradley is a member of the International Association for Energy Economics, the American Economics Association, and the American Historical Association. He is CEO and founder of the Institute for Energy Research in Houston; visiting fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs in London; an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute; and a member of the academic review committee of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University.

Paul Driessen’scareer has included staff tenures with the United States Senate, Department of the Interior and an energy trade association. He has spoken and written frequently on energy and environmental policy, global climate change, corporate social responsibility, and on marine life associated with oil platforms off the coasts of California and Louisiana. Driessen received his BA in geology and field ecology from Lawrence University, JD from the University of Denver College of Law, and accreditation in public relations from the Public Relations Society of America. A former member of the Sierra Club and Zero Population Growth, he abandoned their cause when he recognized that the environmental movement had become intolerant in its views, inflexible in its demands, unwilling to recognize our tremendous strides in protecting the environment, and insensitive to the needs of billions of people who lack the food, electricity, safe water, healthcare and other basic necessities that we take for granted. Driessen is a senior fellow with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, nonprofit public policy institutes that focus on energy, the environment, economic development and international affairs.

Michael J. Economidesis among America's leading energy analysts who regularly appears on national TV and radio programs. As a consultant, educator, and PhD petroleum engineer, Economides has done technical and managerial work in more than 70 countries. A professor at the Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston, Economides has written or co-written about 200 articles and peer-reviewed papers and 11 textbooks. Economides is the Editor-in-Chief for the Energy Tribunemagazine. He is also the co-author, with Ron Oligney, of the industry primer, The Color of Oil: The History, the Money and the Politics of the World's Biggest Business, which was published in 2000 and has since been translated into five languages. CARE is honored to include Michael Economides as a member of the Energy Counsel.

Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., is a retired nuclear scientist and university chemistry professor. He is the science and energy writer/reporter for the HawaiiReport.com. A resident of Kaneohe, Hawaii, he has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field. His interests and activities in the communications of science, energy, and the environment has led to several communications awards, hundreds of speeches, and many appearances on television and talk shows. Dr. Fox is listed by the Heartland Institute as a global warming/climate change expert. He is also the Senior Fellow for Science at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. He can be reached via email at mfox@grassrootinstitute.org. Please visit Dr. Mike Fox's blog at http://www.foxreport.org/.

Byron King is the resident energy and natural resource expert at Agora Financial, LLC. A geologist by training, he worked for the former Gulf Oil Company and has followed oil industry developments for over 30 years. Byron’s career path also took him into the U.S. Navy, both active duty and reserve. In the 1990s and 2000s Byron engaged in a vigorous private law practice. For the past five years Byron has been writing about energy and natural resource issues for an international audience. Currently, Byron writes and edits two major publications, Outstanding Investments and Energy and Scarcity Investor. Byron holds degrees from Harvard, the U.S. Naval War College and the University of Pittsburgh.

Tom Tanton is the Principal of T2 & Associates, a firm providing consulting services to the energy and technology industries. Mr. Tanton has over 35 years experience in the energy, economy, and environmental fields.